bee

If you love Smashmouth, Nickelback, or Rollins Band, this is not the band for you. But if you can get into the soulful mega-hooks of David Gray, The Killers, or Oasis, then you should be into bee.
bee is a new pop band with a set of sinfully catchy melodies.

bee is the brainchild of songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Markos, who has built a significant reputation with solo records and performances, including opening for Bob Dylan, Curve, Melissa Etheridge, Todd Rundgren, Roger McGuinn, The The, the Violent Femmes, 10,000 Maniacs, and many others.

bee features a powerful lineup: drummer Todd Sucherman (Brian Wilson, Styx), bassist Eddie Carlson (Poi Dog Pondering), and backing vocalist Kathy Jo Warden. Guest appearances are also made by Mike Zelenko (Material Issue), Howie Kantoff (Poster Children), Mark Schwarz (David Singer & the Sweet Science), and Matthew Payne (Hot Glue Gun).

bee is a showcase for what Markos calls “magic pop.” Not beholden to trends or formats, bee capitalizes on strong, hooky melodies and concentrated pop-rock arrangements. The songwriting and sound have been compared to the most respected work of David Gray, Pete Townshend, and Oasis.
Leader Nicholas Markos has also played with English chanteuse Cath Carroll (Factory, Teenbeat), Last Gentlemen (Zoo), and other artists. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune calls him “one of Chicago’s most promising performers,” and Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times said of his most recent work, “A slave to no genre, the ridiculously prolific Nicholas Markos brings to mind a hipper underground version of David Gray. He could be dangerous.”

The appearance of Mike Zelenko on two tracks on "Break Through Overground" had its start in the spring of 1996, when Markos did a couple of audition jam sessions with Zelenko and Material Issue bandmate Jim Ellison, as part of a spin-off project that the two from Material Issue were creating. Nicholas knew Jim from the Chicago music scene, and their common musical language was on display from the moment Nicholas plugged in and hammered out the intro to The Who’s “Substitute”—Zelenko and Ellison joined right in, and there was a palpable musical chemistry. The group also played a number of songs that eventually landed on the posthumous Material Issue release Telecommando Americano. Ellison’s tragic death ended the potential collaboration at the time, but Markos and Zelenko saw each other from time to time, and they ran into each other during the making of Break Through Overground, when Nicholas invited Mike to a session that yielded “Birdy Deluxe Superstar” and “Disappear.” Zelenko’s muscular, song-centric pop drumming provides just the right feel for those tracks, propelling the hook of “Birdy Deluxe Superstar” and provided the solid backbone of the majestic lament of “Disappear.”